On 5/1/12, Mike Hale <eyeronic.design@gmail.com> wrote:
"A customer pays you to build a piece of software by the hour. Another comes along and asks for the same software. You bill both for each hour. Double billing. Unethical. Wrong. [...] Neither of these is unethical or wrong in any way. What are you supposed to do, write software from scratch every time? That's just silly.
Hi Mike, If one of the customers happens to be the U.S. Government, it's not only unethical it's a crime. It's usually a felony. You can do time. The product was man hours. You've sold them once. You can't sell them again. The customers can agree to share the cost up front. But then you're not billing the same hours twice, you're billing half an hour to one customer and half to another. When you finish the software you can sell the software to a second customer. But you *may not* tie your price to the hours used to produce it for the first. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004